Buhari, others demand Roadmap on resolution of political impasse in Togo

President Muhammadu Buhari and five other concerned West African leaders have called for an immediate roadmap to pave the way for negotiations between the Togolese government led by President Faure Gnassingbe and the opposition movement.
Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, in a statement issued on Thursday in Abuja, said the demand by the leaders came at a meeting to discuss the situation in Togo, on the sidelines of the African Union-European Union Summit in Abidjan.
Shehu said the affected Presidents who attended the meeting with President Eyadema included those of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic and Guinea Conakry.
He said the West African leaders asked the parties in Togo to urgently negotiate, without ‘‘any preconditions’’, and resolve the impasse in the interest of the well-being of the country and the region at large.
It would be recalled that President Eyadema had given himself a deadline of Friday to provide the basis and framework for negotiations in response to the increasing list of demands put together by the opposition movement seeking to oust him from power after 12 years as President.
His late predecessor and father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, was the President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005.